EVENT POSTPONED. STAY TUNED FOR RESCHEDULED DATE.
Registration: Registration (monday.com)
Mobility, Power and Place Arab-Asians in the age of imperialism and nationalism, 1870-1950
From the mid-19th century, Hadhrami Arab migrations (from what is now Yemen) to the Indian subcontinent and "southeast Asia" resulted in economic and political impact beyond their actual numbers. Emergent merchant trading elites maintained important networks across the Malay Archipelago and back ‘home’ in south Arabia. These elites were often major local rentiers with investments in growing urban real estate expansions, and thus had political significance for the British and Dutch colonial powers. Until 1919, the Ottoman Empire was seen as a still important force opposing these colonial interests. ‘Islam’ was a constant threat in the imaginary of the imperial powers. ‘Modernist’/‘reformist’ and ‘traditional’ currents were in conflict in Hadhrami communities that were riven with status divisions. The relations of Arab groups with growing regional nationalist forces in ‘the Malay world’ were varying, their collaboration with the British and Dutch regimes complex and problematic. Intermarriage with local women led to multiple questions of ‘hybrid’ or ‘mixed’ identity. While studies of mobility very important in analyzing such rapidly shifting contexts, a focus on the material, cultural and metaphorical practices of place-making is also significant. I shall offer an outline of how we might analytically reflect on these issues.
Professor Gilsenan received his doctorate at Oxford University, having conducted research about religious authority and group formation in a Sufi order in Cairo, resulting in his book, Saint and Sufi in Modern Egypt: An Essay in the Sociology of Religion (Clarendon Press 1973). He then worked in a village in north Lebanon in the early 1970s studying violence, status, and power, resulting in the monograph, Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in a Lebanese Society (I.B. Tauris Press 1996). His book, Recognizing Islam: An Anthropologist’s Introduction (Pantheon Press 1983) is a classic text, used by generations of students and scholars.
Dr. Gilsenan taught at New York University since 1995 until his recent retirement. His ongoing research concerns the Hadhrami Arab diaspora in Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia, focusing on questions of law, inheritance, property, and multi-generational families in the 19th century colonial contexts through the post-colonial situations more recently.
